Video: A 14-Year-Old’s Invention
Our favorite part of this story is the girl isn’t even old enough to drive irresponsibly and crash her parents’ car yet . . .
14-year-old Alaina Gassler lives in West Grove, Pennsylvania, just west of Philadelphia. And she came up with an invention that basically eliminates the BLIND SPOTS in a car created by the support posts on the sides of the windshield. (They’re called A-pillars.)
She put a tiny camera on the passenger’s side of a car, right next to the windshield. Then she linked it to a projector installed inside the car that projects live video ONTO the blind spot.
There’s a video that shows how it works, and it does seem helpful. The footage plays in real time, so it’s almost like looking through the car and seeing what’s outside.
She recently entered it into an engineering contest called the Broadcom Masters, which is like a science fair for super-smart kids. And she won the grand prize of $25,000.
Now car companies are looking into offering it in their cars, and it could be available relatively soon.
Alaina says she was just trying to figure out a way to prevent so many car crashes. And she was shocked to actually win the competition.
